Recently I have been seeing a lot of content on the internet about me being a scammer. Well I had a closer look at the content, and what I saw was really despicable. Let me explain.

Here’s what I can see. Other people are siphoning and leveraging on my name, Ewen Chia, just to get traffic to their website. The content on their website is falsely disparaging my credibility. However, the majority of general consumers do not know well enough, and so, they will believe pretty much almost anything they see on the internet. In turn, these website owners will promote their own offer and product. This is certainly a strategy that has been around for a long time, and I am not the only victim. Loads of credible internet marketers and coaches out there have been on the receiving end of fake negative reviews. Beware of negative reviews and the people behind them! Here are a few of the culprits:

Ian Pribyl of StoppingScams.com

He writes about scam products on the internet but his website Stopping Scams is a big internet marketing scam in itself. He has even been called out by fellow internet marketer Desmond Ong. (I know Desmond personally. He’s a nice guy. Certainly not a scammer.) Ian writes fake reviews about various internet marketers’ products, gives them bad ratings, and in turn promotes his own offer as a “credible” alternative, Wealthy Affiliate.

Roderick “Nathaniell” of One More Cup Of Coffee

Like Ian, he has written a lot of fake negative reviews about me as well as other credible marketers, giving my products a dismal ratings. He ends off his reviews by promoting Wealthy Affiliate.

Actually there are more like Ian and Nathaniel, and they all do the same thing. They write negative reviews about other marketers’ products, and in turn promote their own Wealthy Affiliate link. This strategy is unethical but it works, because these Wealthy Affiliates have managed to fool a lot of people out there.

I am thankful that there are some who are a bit more discerning and not easily fooled by negative reviews. Here’s what I read on an “Ewen Chia product review” which I found on YouTube:

(“Black hat marketing” is just another way of saying unethical marketing.)

I want to thank the people who believe in me and the value that I give on a regular basis.

Note: I am not saying ALL Wealthy Affiliates are practicing this unethical marketing method. What I am saying is most of the people I’ve found who are writing fake negative reviews about me are promoting Wealthy Affiliate.

So before you come to your own conclusion, just remember that you can find pretty much everything and anything on the internet. You cannot take whatever information you find online at face value.

One of the skills I’m best known for is “Affiliate Marketing”, the business model of making commissions through the marketing and selling of other companies’ products and services.

It’s with Affiliate Marketing in mind that I’m writing this article, which is long overdue in my opinion.

Have you ever searched the search engines and saw websites ranking for “author name + scam”, “author name + product name” or “product name reviews” etc.?

This is an affiliate marketing strategy known as “Fake Reviews” and involves the websites or web pages writing largely fake and biased negative reviews of a person or product, while promoting themselves or their chosen products.

Meaning, they are actually doing all this to MAKE MONEY from another product (product B) while tearing down the competitor’s product (product A).

It happens everywhere, not only in the Internet Marketing niche.

It’s a strategy that works as many people are misled by and fall for these “reviews”. So they keep appearing and continuing.

Most of these website owners also employ black hat tactics to benefit themselves.

They tend to target popular brands and products – simply because there’s traffic from people searching for them.

Lets look at how you can spot fake reviews so that you’re in the know…

How To Spot A Fake Review – 3 Tell Tale Signs

Tell Tale Sign #1: Targeting Popular Gurus, Brands And Products

Fake reviews are often targeted at popular gurus, brands and products because they have huge traffic and search volume, ie. demand. In fact, this is the only way the strategy can be effective.

Tell Tale Sign #2: Bashing One Product To Promote Another

If someone is bashing a product or products unfairly, only to recommend another “better” product that he or she is making a commission on, then it’s positively a fake review.

Some of these website owners also go as far as to promote themselves as a more credible and trustworthy alternative, as the other guru or brand is seen in a bad light based on their “reviews”.

Tell Tale Sign #3: Multiple Search Engine Rankings

As mentioned, the way this works is by targeting popular keywords that describe their competitors’ names and products.

They then try to rank for these multiple keywords on the search engines to get traffic.

Think about it, why would another website try so hard to rank and get traffic for OTHER people’s names and product names on the search engines?

The very fact that they are doing this shows you they are using fake reviews as a strategy to make money.

Hope this article will give you a deeper insight and clearer perspective when you next look at a review.

Read About Ewen Chia

Hey guys, this is Ewen Chia, I've been marketing online since 1997 and have helped thousands of … [Read More...]

Ewen Chia
is a Internet Addict. Marketing Online Since 1997. International Speaker and
Trainer. #1 International Bestselling Author of "How I Made My First Million
On The Internet and How You Can Too!" Read about Ewen Chia Reviews,
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